by Paul Allen
Blue Christmas – A Reflection on Psalm 42
“As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God.” – Psalm 42
Today’s Psalm of Lamentation could not be better placed in the Lectionary. Just this past Sunday we heard exuberant joy and gladness in the readings: “…the desolate places shall rejoice; Happy are they…; My spirit rejoices…”
But today, we read of despair and sadness: “why are you cast down, my soul?;tears are my food day and night; God’s waves and billows overpower me.
For those who are depressed, the winter Holy Days are a dark and difficult time, especially when we hear all around us that this should be the happiest time of the year. Warm fuzzies, catchy music, and shouted greetings of “Merry this” or “Happy that” bombard us from the media and people around us. We feel guilty for not feeling that way, which drives us deeper into gloom. We can only find stale water in mudholes, rather than the fresh flowing streams our souls crave. We stagger, lost in deep darkness.
However, Psalm 42 also brings hope for us: “Hope! – for I shall again praise my God”. When we are in a dark night of the soul, God may seem invisible, even non-existent. But if we can at least hang on to the HOPE of the return of light, that is something we can cling to in the darkness, something to steady us until a small glimmer of light eventually reveals the end of the dark tunnel and restores our compass.